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reMigration poker in Brussels goes to the next round. EU interior ministers will discuss the EU Commission’s plans for a new common European asylum and migration policy for the first time this Thursday in a video conference. The head of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, presented her concept two weeks ago. He wants to finally make European migration policy weather resistant. His creed: chaos and a massive attack like the one in 2015 must not be repeated under any circumstances.
In Brussels, however, it is clear to everyone that if the brutal conflicts in various North African states like Libya, that is, right on Europe’s doorstep, escalate, hundreds of thousands of migrants will soon return to Europe. Time is running out.
Horst Seehofer (CSU) knows this too. As representative of the EU Council Presidency, the German Interior Minister leads the discussions on the new asylum package. Seehofer has made countless phone calls with colleagues in Brussels and in European capitals in recent days, sometimes from his company car.
Now it comes down to technical details: How many new border guards are needed to improve the protection of the external borders? How can migrant registration and asylum examinations be carried out as quickly as possible? How can the meager deportation rate of almost 30 percent finally be improved? The Bavarian must now practice silent diplomacy on the international stage: sounding out positions, smoothing the waves, finding lines of compromise.
Positions on what the EU’s asylum policy should look like in the future are still far apart on important points. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johannsson had foreseen this in advance: “No one will be satisfied with our proposals,” she said shortly before the legislative plans were announced. It’s correct: there are criticisms of the proposals from many sides in detail. But critics are much more cautious than in 2016. At that time, the EU Commission under the leadership of Jean-Claude Juncker experienced a debacle because each member state wanted something different and many governments felt run over by the EU Commission. .
Von der Leyen learned from this. It had sent its two responsible commissioners, Margaritis Schinas and Ylva Johansson, on a month-long “listening tour” throughout the EU capitals. So slowly a new confidence developed again.
Austria’s conservative Interior Minister Karl Nehammer also sees it this way: “I welcome the new plans of the September EU Commission for a common European asylum and migration policy,” he told WELT. In the proposal there are “many measures that are broadly in line with Austria’s demands, such as the objective of strong cooperation with third countries, close cooperation between member states on return and consistent protection of the external borders of the EU”.
Karl Nehammer (ÖVP), Minister of the Interior of Austria
Source: dpa
Nehammer described the EU Commission’s plans as a “bold signal that does not lift a moral finger, but for the first time in five years tackles the problem of irregular migration seriously and pragmatically.” “Now I am entering the negotiations with confidence and I also hope that there will finally be an agreement,” the minister continued. His country wants to play a “very constructive role” in the negotiations. It is normal to have different points of view in a negotiation process. “It is important that, as Horst Seehofer says, now we first talk about what connects us all and only at the end of what separates us,” says Nehammer.
The EU Commission sees it differently. Vice President Schinas recently warned the German Council Presidency not to decouple parts of the reform and ignore the controversial question of how refugees should be distributed for the time being. The proposals would have to be negotiated in the “global package,” Schinas said in the European Parliament.
Seehofer is reluctant to do this. He wants to focus first on the points that have one thing in common: consistent deportations of illegals, more efficient protection of the external borders and better cooperation with third countries. On the contrary, the issue of the distribution and organization of rapid deportations is highly controversial at the moment.
“But it is already a great success that the 27 EU countries are now holding talks together and in a friendly spirit about a friendly solution to their migration policy. That would have been unimaginable 100 or 75 years ago, ”said Seehofer’s Viennese colleague Nehammer. But the Austrian also stated: “Contrary to what the EU Commission suggests, we strictly reject the forced distribution of asylum seekers to EU countries or even mandatory quotas out the back door.”
Nehammer justified it as follows: “Austria has granted protection to some 120,000 people since 2015, which is an extremely high amount for a country of our size. We constantly have a disproportionately high migratory burden, but we are not prepared to provide additional capacities in the framework of refugee quotas. Austria’s cargo is already at the limit. “
“We have to stop the migration”
The Vienna minister criticized what also bothers the Visegrad countries: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary: the plan of the EU Commission to distribute refugees to all EU countries by quotas in crisis situations. “We have to stop migration and quotas and redistribution,” said Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis.
Under the plan, there should only be exceptions to the refugee quota if an individual EU country agrees to “return sponsorships”, with its own resources and at its own expense, to illegal immigrants from European soil within four to be deported until eight months. If this is not successful, the EU country has to accept refugees against their will according to a certain distribution formula. “They want to manage migration and not stop migrants,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.
Luxembourg’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Migration, Jean Asselborn, is outraged: “I find it profoundly anti-European and lacking in solidarity that things are breaking up so quickly in the air.” France also welcomed the Brussels proposals. Athens, on the other hand, made it clear that they would insist on a “uniform distribution” of the refugees. In the EU Parliament, which ultimately has to approve the legislative plans, he says: “We do not want mass detention camps at the external borders of the EU where there are illegal immigrants who cannot be deported.” EU Migration Commissioner Ylva Johansson responded: “Please propose no detention.”
The weather is heating up. Above all, Seehofer wants to bring calm to the debate on Thursday. That will not be easy. Austrian Interior Minister Nehammer sees further problems: “We also consider the EU Commission’s proposal that individual EU countries should make return agreements with third countries in the framework of so-called deportation sponsorships It’s not convenient”. This is the wrong approach. The EU is “an economic area of 440 million people and as a community it can exert much more pressure on third countries and at the same time offer incentives for agreements than a single member country.”
